I need to clarify something I'm having trouble with regarding negation of sentences. Anybody here speak MSA or a dialect? Thanks.

4/27/2010 10:09:52 AM

I took it at NCSU through 302-- I'm not fluent, but I might be able to help. Let me know your question!

4/27/2010 10:24:29 AM

I'm somewhat familiar as well

Hala sheiki, ha lini falla mili ha lan shi inni mala

4/27/2010 10:26:29 AM

Okay, I'll have to use phonetic spelling since I don't have my keyboard here.

I keep getting hung up on nominal sentence negation. Anna laysa andee I understand: I don't have. At what point do you use Lestoo The example I have is for being married "Hal anta mootazowadj?" "La lestoo mootazowadj" Do you use lestoo when you are negating and offering a response? Such as: I am not married but I am single. I never know when to use laysa and the verb or lestoo.

I asked the instructor yesterday but he's Iraqi and there's a small language barrier. Thanks for the help.

4/27/2010 10:28:29 AM

Its much like with Spanish and the formal/informal use of tu and/or ustedes. It depends more on the context of the situation as opposed to what is actually being said. If its a casual conversation, you probably want to use laysa and the verb. Lestoo is more formal, and will come across as more of an interrogation than a simple question. There is no hard and fast rule here; its more about personal preference, but I probably wouldn't use lestoo in this particular situation.

4/27/2010 10:36:13 AM

^Yes, I agree. Most situations that come up, I will always use laysa.

4/27/2010 10:38:10 AM

Alright thanks.

We have to pass an Oral Proficiency Interview after 6 months, and the teacher is hard on things like correct grammar structure and using MSA and not dialect-slang. I don't think ultimately it will be a big issue.

4/27/2010 10:39:13 AM

I speak fluent Arabic. But I cannot help you. We speak a completely different dialect then the rest of the Arab world. It's been since middle school since I've taken classical Arabic.

4/27/2010 10:39:58 AM

Moroccan?

4/27/2010 10:40:57 AM

Egyptian.

But I grew up in the UAE which is why I had to take classical Arabic all through school.

4/27/2010 2:47:19 PM

If you wanted help with derija (Moroccan Arabic), I could have helped. But definitely not with MSA, hopefully I'll study it in the future. Just seeing the differences in negation is crazy. The differences between dialects/classical can be as much as say between the romance languages.

4/28/2010 8:56:57 PM

^anthony? holy cow dude! been forever!

4/28/2010 9:55:42 PM

So what sort of people am I really going to be talking to with MSA? The school I'm at has dialectal classes but they would be considered "graduate" level if it were a university, and I'm not much of a learner, so I doubt I'll be back.

4/29/2010 11:42:43 AM

Technically all Arabic speakers. In Egypt we have a different spoken dialect but written is the same.

4/29/2010 11:56:53 AM

any educated arab speaks MSA...obviously, if you walk around the streets of Cairo, no one will be speaking it, but it is the dialect taught in university and what most arabic broadcasts are delivered in. dialects are frustrating, and i would imagine especially so for you, being that your instructor is iraqi...that might as well be a completely different language. syrian/levantine/saudi is pretty similar to MSA.

with your question, "laysa" is a hollow verb, so all rules still apply...and you still conjugate it. In the sentence "ana taulib," "ana" is the subject; therefore, laysa is conjugated as lestu.

Lestu= first person singular
Lesta/Lesti= second person singular
laysa/laysat= third person singluar
...and so on

the hard part is being aware of what the subject and predicate are in the sentence, and putting the predicate in its proper case.

example:

The manager is not in his office = Laysa almudeeru fee hatha almaktabi.

He is not the manager in this office = Laysa almudeera fee hatha almaktabi.

In the first sentence, almuderru is the subject. There is no object of laysa. In the second sentence, huwa is the subject and the manager is the predicate, so put it in the accusative case.


I know this is probably a trainwreck of a post, organizationally speaking...but I hope it helps. Arabic grammar is about the most frustrating thing I have ever encountered. If there is one positive to learning dialects, it is that grammar is all but thrown out the window.

4/29/2010 12:15:30 PM

Thank you for posting that. It does help somewhat, MSA grammar is quite frustrating, especially since I got out of college in 06 and hardly took any English classes.

4/29/2010 1:07:30 PM

When you guys are writing Arabic using Latin characters, you guys don't use digits like 3 for the letter 'ain' etc? Since there are 2 t's, 2 h's, 2 s's, 2 k's, etc, Arabic speakers use digits to represent some of the letters when writing Arabic using Latin characters.

And also for example for the 2 d's, they use d for one and D for the other one.

Examples:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080821210526AAN7lhd

1. bas kalem jawhara sara7a
2. i7tiram... full sentence was: ili bala i7tiram b dal bala i7tiram
3. kulshi 2elo 7dodo fhemte?
4. sama7tek
5. laish mish msadktene?
6. be 2amer 3younek ana
7. esbne metel ma sabek
8. inte 7ora

Explanation:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070708094722AAszEBp

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

because these numbers looks like some arabic characters so we use it in writing Arabic texts written in english like
3=?
7=?
?is an arabic character and looks like 7
?is an arabic character and looks like 3

4/29/2010 1:29:09 PM

well Arabic Numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 4...) are derived from the Hindu-Arabic numeric system. But yeah, all my relatives use them to write on each others walls in Arabic.

4/29/2010 1:34:14 PM

I think you're trying to become a tururrist

4/29/2010 1:55:34 PM

do any of you have a job that allows you to utilize your fluency in arabic?

4/29/2010 1:59:18 PM

I don't work at Subway, so no.

haha...jk.

4/29/2010 2:01:53 PM

I've had the chance to use half a dozen times or so with work and fucked it up royally each time

It's one thing to "know" a language and a completely different thing to be able to speak it conversationally, but most of your probably already knew that

4/29/2010 2:58:12 PM

I think you fucked up the english language too.

Quote :

"most of your probably already knew that"

4/29/2010 3:11:24 PM

It's almost a guarantee I'll be using this when I finish. We pass an Oral interview now instead of a written test because it's required that we have some conversational ability.

Also I'm the farthest thing from a turririst.

[Edited on April 29, 2010 at 3:25 PM. Reason : asdf]

4/29/2010 3:24:03 PM

Quote :

"It's one thing to "know" a language and a completely different thing to be able to speak it conversationally"

So true

5/3/2010 2:55:07 AM